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Ellen Campbell

AP English & AP History

Cooper & Whipple

May 22nd, 2017

The Negative impacts of Societies on Native traditions and Cultures

Guiding Question: How might influencing cultures impact native culture in a negative or positive

way?

Throughout the history of American colonies expanding, indigenous people have been

effected throughout their way of life and also their cultures. When European explorers found the

Americas, run ins with Native Americans caused fear to many, including those who have lived

on these lands for years. As more and more people started settling in the americas Natives were

being pushed out of their lands and being forced to reservations. The government and other

communities that surrounded Native areas started to control much of these peoples way of life.

This has caused major disruption on their cultural practices and and has tremendously impacted

the way that they live. Although some influences are positive, influencing cultures have

negatively affected Native life and culture due to putting stereotypes on their identity, taking

away opportunity and livelihood, and controlling their way of life.

Native American life has been negatively impacted by colonizations and governments

controlling these peoples simple ways of life. For example, the film The Mission that my

classmates and I watched in AP English class, gave us an example of a time where native culture

has been influenced by other cultures coming into their land and controlling them. We were

shown how Native Americans fought for their land from the Spanish that were coming into the
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United States to settle at the time, and about how hard it was for the natives to fight back for

their land due to how powerful these incoming settlers were. The discussion we had following

the film by expanded on dissident and idealism and how that was shown through the Native

cultures.This let us recognize different perspectives of what each of us took away from the film

which opened our minds to different thinking that we possibly hadn't thought about prior to the

discussion. From this, Natives lost a lot of their critical traditions due to the influence of Spanish

expansion taking away their lands and controlling their actions. Also, the study of Native

responses to colonization in AP History is another example of a time this year where my

classmates and I saw how Natives were negatively affected by incoming colonizations

controlling their way of life. During this activity my classmates and I analysed two documents

each (ten in total) and took notes on the author's, purpose, and audience of the presented

documents. From annotating these historical documents I got to look in depth at how Natives

responded to colonization, for example when enforcing laws were extremely hard for indians to

follow, which exemplifies how people have altered native life. These Natives struggled with

living by these harsh rules and couldn't maintain their original traditions. Lastly, From personal

experience when talking to a native Acoma member at the Acoma pueblo in New Mexico, I saw

first hand how this community has negatively been affected by incoming cultures. Right as this

group settled in New Mexico explorers and other tribes started coming into their community and

were trying to control/manipulate the Acoma people so that they would provide food and shelter

for these people. Finally, when a group of Apache came and tried to control the Acoma people

they got fed up and started a war. Resulting from this war, most of their members died and it is

known to be the most harsh conflict in their history yet. While talking to this man about this

incident I could see how struck he still felt about this event to this day and how it still holds a lot
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of meaning to each of the tribe members. This is an example of these Indians being controlled

and trying to fight back, which led to a devastating loss for the Acoma community. By societies

coming into Native American property and trying to control these people's lives, it has and still is

hurting and altering Native traditions and cultures in a very negative way.

Not only have differing cultures affected tribes by controlling them, but they have also

taken away things within their livelihoods. For example, In AP History we studied the Dakota

Wars by analysing documents from several perspectives including the Native Americans, the

Federal Government, and White Settlers. My groupmates and I then proceeded to create a

powerpoint that asked the question of “Who is the savage in this war”, which my group found to

be the federal government. These documents showed us all of the limitations and restrictions that

were put on Native Americans during this time, like taking away their lands, which provides us

with an example of a time where natives were negatively affected by an outside culture. This has

caused their lives to alter in a very harmful way by creating poverty and lack of resources, like

water or land, to be available. Matter of fact, in New Mexico on the last night my classmates and

I had the opportunity to talk and listen to a Native storyteller named Sunny, who went on to tell

us about how she lives with no running water. Sunny lives with no running water due to the

federal government originally not giving her community funding to extend water pipes, which

would cost millions of dollars to do so but is extremely possible. The government is taking away

resources that they can easily get to these Native people and are treating them with much less

respect then they deserve.This impacts Sunny and her community's way of life because since she

does not have lively resources that she needs to live, she has to drive twenty miles to get water to

survive. Lastly, we see how Natives have had resources taken away by studying the Mexican-

American war and writing contextualization about how this shows a direct correlation to Native
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Americans. The contextualization of the Mexican-American War that I wrote about in my AP

History class discussed people fighting for their land, which started when the Natives were being

moved out of their homelands onto smaller amounts of land when colonies started to move to the

United States. The shows how natives were taken out of their homes and established

communities because colonizers wanted their land, which altered their way of life and cultures

exponentially.

Not only by controlling and taking away part of Native Cultures, we are shown how

differing cultures have negatively affected native life through stereotyping. For example, a movie

that we watched in my AP English class this year called Smoke Signals, painted this picture for

my classmates and I very clearly.This movie helped further understand my way of looking at

Native life and culture as a whole because it was told from the perspective of a Native American,

which made my classmates and I think far beyond stereotypes that we previously believed in.The

film shows how these stereotypes have affected this group of people, when the two Native

Americans were on the bus and the white women spoke to them in a super racist tone. From

being acknowledged and ridiculed about their culture and being made fun of it in a way, really

impacts Natives emotional thoughts of being proud who they are. By displaying the native

American side of how these cultures are being changed due to stereotypes people put on them

and what people also think about them, it gave us a direct example of how stereotypes negatively

affect native american culture. This is creating a stigma on their culture which has had a negative

impact on their communities around the United states and will continue to do so. Also, In AP

English we held a socratic seminar where we discussed native American stereotypes, talked

about what the majority of the human population think of them, what they think of us, and how

these stereotypes are caused. From watching and reading various movies and articles on this
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topic my classmates and I compiled information from various sources to expand upon while

discussing. This let each student grow credibility to what they were trying to say, which

influenced other students to believe what the student was saying and led to heated debates and

also very complimentary discussion. in conclusion the discussions purpose was to talk about how

these american stereotypes have influenced Native American Culture tremendously by painting a

false image that most Americans perceive Indians as. This shows how differing cultures have

impacted Native American culture by putting a stigma on their traditions and way of life. Lastly,

I have seen this through personal experience in New Mexico on our Float Trip down the Rio

Grande, with our Native American Storyteller. While on the boat my groups storyteller

proceeded to tell us how at a young age she would get made fun of how she dressed from other

children her age, and how they would tease her for the culture and tribal community that she was

apart of. Children would laugh at her becuase she looked like “pocahontas” and accused her of

“puts her hand to her mouth to make a sound”. This emotional experience that she shared with

my groupmates and I really opened my eyes to see the emotional toll that stereotypes put out

there for the people being stereotyped. This was something that emotionally affected me while

on the trip and opened my eyes to realize how hurtful things like that are to the people who are

being criticized.

Even though Native Americans have mostly been negatively affected due to influencing

cultures, there have aso been positive outcomes from influencing cultures that have created great

opportunity for Natives. For example, on our travels in New Mexico we visited the Nuclear

Science Museum where I learned about how the nuclear bomb created great labor opportunity for

unemployed Native Americans. Native Americans lived on lands that held uranium mines, which

was a very needed product in order to make a successful nuclear bomb. From living on these
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mines, they became the primary miners that got uranium for the inventors of this deadly bomb.

This creating labor opportunity for these Natives and let them be apart of one of the biggest

advancements in United States history, which had a very positive effect on their lives. Another

example of positive outcomes on Natives due to differing cultures that I have seen is through the

studying the comanche empire in AP history. While taking textbook notes about conflict in the

west, we studied in depth how the civil war impacted the comanches in a very positive way and

brought buffalo hunting, trading alliances, and fighting into their lives. This is an example of

how interaction that might seem not very positive at first has brought resources to their lives that

have changed and shaped their culture for the better by being exposed to greater food resources

and great trade opportunity, that has created strong relationships with other groups of people.

Through the years Native Americans have had interactions that have not only been bad but have

opened doors for their communities and brought different and easier ways to live that have

changed their lives forever.

During my time in my Junior year of High school the Academy for Global Studies has

opened great academic opportunity for me to learn and experience native cultures and traditions

through classroom studies and traveling studies to New Mexico. From studying this for nine

months, I have focused on looking into how Native Culture have been affected by other people.

From the times that the Americas were found by European Settlers to present time, Native

Americans have been negatively affected in their cultures and livelihood due to other

communities and people putting stereotypes on their identity, taking away their opportunity and

livelihood, and controlling their way of life. Culture is something that has shaped the world

today that makes people unique and connected, and Natives americans are experiencing other

societies demolishing and changing theirs. This is an issue that people need to be educated on so
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that the world can take action and stand up for these people's rights and traditions. Unfortunately

until we start taking initiative, Native Americans are going to keep living in confined areas,

being negatively controlled and influenced by opposing societies.

Work Cited

Eyre, Chris, et al. Smoke signals. Accessed 12 Apr. 2017.

Huey, Aaron. "America's Native Prisoners of War." TED. September2010.https://Www.

ted.com/talks/aaron_huey. Accessed 23 May 2017.

The Mission. Directed by Roland Joffe, performances by Robert DeNiro, Jeremy Irons,
and Ray McAnally, 1986.

“Why do people make stereotypes? .” Mar. 2015, www.thinglink.com/scene/7207385

40501073922.Accessed 23 May 2017.